| This study investigated extent, nature, tenor, and change over time of the coverage of cosmetic surgery in women's health and fitness magazines. The research questions that guided this study emerged from the body of research that examines how exposure to media content may relate to the rising number of pathological eating and body image disorders affecting women today. Because cosmetic surgery has been positioned along a continuum of potentially pathologically disturbed behaviors and attitudes toward diet and exercise, studying the changing extent, nature, and tenor of coverage of cosmetic surgery in women's health and fitness magazines was determined to be an important and neglected area of study. All available issues of self described women's fitness and health magazines (Allure, Cosmopolitan, Self, Fitness, Jane, Shape, More, Heart & Soul, Muscle & Fitness Hers, O: The Oprah Magazine, and Energy for Women) from the years 1983, 1992, and 2001 were read cover-to-cover and coded for their editorial coverage of cosmetic surgery. Results from the study suggest women's health and fitness magazines provided steady coverage of cosmetic surgery as a positive option for women. Results indicate that although, across years, the number of stories per issue has not increased, there are more magazines that contain a slightly higher percentage of coverage per issue. In general, coverage was superficial, most often found as the secondary focus of a story and often contained in no more than a sentence. Across years, breast augmentation, liposuction, nose reshaping, facelift, and eyelid surgery were the surgical procedure most often covered and were the procedures most often performed. Coverage was found to be most often, and increasingly, positive, less neutral, and least often negative. That coverage was spread throughout more magazines, was most often positive yet superficial, and was contained in stories focused on other body management options such as diet or exercise, suggests cosmetic surgery was being treated as a normal element in a body management regimen by women's fitness and health magazines. |
